1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to Internet search, and more particularly to ordering of search results.
2. Description of Related Art
A search engine may allow users to search for web pages or other materials accessible over the Internet with one or more search terms. After receiving from a user a query including one or more words, a search engine may identify web pages that may be related to the words, and display on a result page information about the web pages as a list of search results, e.g., a link to a web page containing the word(s). The search results may be ranked according to their relevance to the words, with the most relevant search result being positioned at the top of the list. The relevance may be determined according to search engine algorithms of a search engine service provider.
There can be millions of search results returned for an Internet search. The list of search results may go on for a number of result pages, and each result page may expand over several screens. Whether a search result is clicked on or not depends on whether and where it was displayed. For example, web users tend to click on search results near the top of search result pages more often. The bottom result on a search result page is typically clicked on substantially less often than is the top result, even if the actual content of the bottom result is more relevant to a search.
In addition, when different people type in the same query to a search engine, they often mean different things. For example, the query “apple” may refer to the fruit or the company of the same name. If the order of returned search results is not right for a particular user and his query, the user may ignore search results which are more relevant to his search but are placed in less prominent positions, resulting in a low click-through rate.
Therefore, it may be desirable to provide a system and method which may personalize the order of search results to decrease the bias introduced by position effects and increase the click-through rate.